Still breathing

Chapter 5

         

New leaves, Evening, Sun's day, Golden flower field, Day 11, Year 287

Kira sat in front of the cherry tree. Its pink flowers bloomed like the woods around her. Everything was coming back to life, after the hard winter. But, the plant barely grew at all. She towered over it now. According to Melathe's height chart, she grew over six centimeters over the last couple of months! The tree looked the same as the last time she saw it, which was two weeks ago. She huffed and turned her back to the lonely tree. This is a waste of her time, just like Tal's 'lessons'.

Tal barely taught her anything over the last two years! She's almost seven and can't do anything spectacular. Kira learned how to solidify her weapons, but she doesn't know how to heal others. She knows little about the art of fighting or defending or anything useful for the Royal Guard! But if ask her about watching critters and building houses, Kira knows how to do it! Gods, Tal wasn't teaching her anything. Lilith gets to learn everything Kira could dream of! Even worse, Tal makes Kira and Lilith fight! Kira is tired of coming home with wounds and scratches, Lilith enjoys rubbing it in.

Kira picked up her satchel. For Lilith's side of the lesson, Maximus made Tal take Lilith out to one of the battlefields. It was a town, a little past the Monster and No fur border. Maximus showed her on the map once, he decided to take it over. The No Fur has been pushing the barrier for a while. Maximus said, that this is a good teaching moment for Lilith.

Kira got mail carrier for the officers in the area. Maximus and the Royal Guard leader stays in Silva, Kira's village, while his other leading officers will stay in the main Battlefields. The leaders would send Maximus mail with updates on the battle, then he would send an order based on that to the leader. It's such boring job. This is normally a Mousetroop's Job, not for a mighty wolf cat like Kira! The satchel held all Maximus' messages to the captain and other letters to the warriors that were deployed to the area.

She got up and brushed herself off; she pulled out the map. Maximus circled the town on Kira's Map and made a strict pathway she must follow to avoid all battles and No Fur scouting spots. If she follows the trail, it should take around three hours to get there.

Gods. She hates this.

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The journey took longer than Maximus predicted. Sure, Kira took a few detours to explore the area, but Maximus should have taken that into account. This was Kira's first time outside the Silva area, so he should have known. Kira caught many things from the woods. She caught a few animals she has never seen before, a few plants that smelled nice and looked pretty, and a knife she found within a bush. It was just like her magic knives, expect it was a little bit bigger and had writing on the handle. Since Tal didn't teach her anything, Kira guessed she could use it in self-defense. Kira knew she was near the battlefield due to the smell.

It's smelled like fire.

Furmons has a tradition to burn down towns they conquered and kill anyone inside. Maximus said this is to stop the No furs from using the town ever again and push them into one area to trap them. Kira thinks it's a very good idea! Kora and Melathe don't like it, Lucky they're not in charge.

The closer Kira got to the battle, the worse the smell got. She isn't even sure either it was smoke anymore. It's smelt like... something metallic.

A scream rang out.

Kira investigated the direction of the scream. What was that? She dropped into her quadruple form. She ran into the direction of the noise.

Sounds of fighting ran over Kira's ears. Gods, it really sounds like they're going at it! She approached a clearing, in the middle of the clearing was a Mousetroop. She had brown fur with white splotches on her face and tail. On the other side was...... Kira wasn't sure what it was. It had no fur, it was brown colored with black fur on top of its head. It had 'armor', but it was made of leather instead of metal like the Monster's armor. What is that? Kira pawed up to the bush and waited behind it.